Write a smarter movie review of the movie Lucy. That’s my to-do list for the weekend. Once again I was bitten by the slick movie trailer antics of Hollywood along with the pushy marketing on the Internet and television. I was on a quest for a smarter sci-fi movie that was propelled by a beautiful young movie starlet. I waited and watched the trailer over and over again. The trailer only gave me a small taste of what was in store. They teased with some special effects and threw in the intellectual and grandfatherly Morgan Freeman to coax you along into thinking there was something cosmic and smarter to look forward in the realm of science fiction movies.

Luc Besson directed Lucy and I don’t normally follow movie directors but in this film I did take notice of his unique approach to cinematography. There was a car chase in this film and I couldn’t say it was that unique compared to other car chase scenes in movies. Without giving away the film’s plot I was a bit disappointed with the scant dialogue and the liberty Mr. Besson took with using a little too much stock footage from what looked like something from the Animal Planet. I guess it was smarter in the respect that it explained the nonverbal things that Lucy was experiencing. Perhaps this could have been done with a little more acting or some other original cinematic device.

The special effects were quite smooth and didn’t really interfere wit h the flow of the movie. I did notice the heavy use of a more common 3-d effect called particle systems which could have meant that Mr. Besson was shooting for a lower budget in this department and trying to be economically smarter about the film’s budget.

Scarlett Johansson is a beautiful young movie star and she did play the part well but do to scant dialogue it was more her appearance than her acting that made the movie.

Morgan Freeman is a Hollywood veteran that can always deliver this type of role in a very convincing manner. His mellow voice and demeanor make you feel that you’ve went and seen a smarter movie. He’s unique in the sense that he can effectively dodge stereotyping and can play almost any type of role.

Overall I did enjoy Lucy and took note of it’s unique plot concept. On the other hand it didn’t really knock my socks emotionally but I was able to live vicariously through the film by seeing Lucy out-psych the bad guys. I don’t think this movie needs a sequel.

Hepatitis A might have been accidentally spread by a Red Robin restaurant employee in Springfield, MO. An estimated 5,000 customers may have been exposed to hepatitis A. An employee of Red Robin had been diagnosed with hepatitis A

Health department officials with Springfield-Green county were notified about the illness Tuesday. State and federal officials rushed to get enough vaccine to innoculate customers that had visited the restaurant from the 8th through the 16th of May.Hepatitis A can affect the liver. Health officials hope to get as many customers vaccinated within a 2 week period otherwise the hepatitis A vaccine may not be effective.

Springfiled is located in southwest Missouri and has a population around 160,000 people.

Hepatitis A can be spread by the feces of an infected person that comes in contact with food or drink served to a restaurant customer. Proper hand washing is the best way to prevent the spread of hepatitis a. Most cases of hepatitis A are not life threatening and symptoms clear up in a few weeks. Liver damage is rare with hepatitis A and there are instances of relapse. Yellowing of the eyes, nausea, vomiting, and fever are often the symptoms of an infection. A vaccine was introduced in the early 1990′s and cases of hepatitis a nationwide have dramatically decreased.

Another Red Robin employee in Stroudsburg, PA was diagnosed with hepatitis A in early May. Other incidents include a Teavana worker giving out tea samples in Indianapolis, MI. Shoppers might have been exposed on three occasions.

Drastic lifestyle changes like preparing more meals at home and raising our own food are good options to guard our health. If we rely on the FDA and CDC our lives may be in peril.

When I was in Brazil I rented a surfboard from a guy that always wore his breakfast on his shirt. The breakfast that adorned his shirt that morning was scrambled eggs and bacon with some hot sauce on the side. But before he would rent me the surfboard I had to listen to a droll lecture on amphibian Catholicism, scissor safety, and ambient lighting.
I was foaming at the mouth and ready to go surfing. Just as he handed me the surfboard he scrutinized my signature on the rental receipt and then yanked back the surfboard and said,
“Not just yet – you need to take a pop quiz on my lecture”, he scowled.
I was sweating bullets as I frantically searched for my #2 pencil. I panicked and popped another strawberry Prozac gummy bear I had stashed in my secret wallet belt I ordered from Fingerhut a few years back.
He didn’t realize I had heat rash in my surfboard shorts and was really turning the screws on me to rent this surfboard. I clasped the yellow #2 pencil as he handed me the pop quiz in what seemed like slow motion and then time sped up as the pop quiz came within 1/8 inch of my fingertips. He suddenly retracted it and scolded me for attempting to fill out his quiz with an ordinary yellow pencil.
” You must fill out this quiz with this limited edition Waterman black fountain pen with custom marble inlay, but you must first double initial the rental agreement”, he snarled.
I succumbed to the pressure eager to surf the Amazon river and quickly double initialed the rental agreement. He calmly passed the pop quiz to me.
“Don’t start yet”, he screamed.
“I’m going to start this stopwatch and give you 7.5 seconds to complete the quiz and if you miss more than 2 questions you fail, by the way the last question is an essay question and must be 1500 words or less written in first person narrative”, he scowled sarcastically.
Beads of sweat popped out of my forehead, my heat rash was raging. I was getting a partial erection thinking about surfing the Amazon river. I popped back into reality as the first 2 seconds sped by like a blur.
The first 5 questions were long and convoluted and filled with technical jargon. They were all multiple choice A-Z! I ran through them as I repeated a Buddhist chant somewhere in my frontal lobes. I ticked off the first 5 questions as my brain reeled with all the jargon.
The stopwatch was at 4.5 seconds. I tried not to panic. The second set of five questions were written in Chinese with certain phrases highlighted in red with an asterisk and double daggers. I shut down the left lobe of my brain, prayed and tried to recall how to read Chinese. Once again all the questions were multiple choice A-Z! I didn’t try to comprehend why he switched alphabets to list the multiple choices. Precious milliseconds withered away as I spoke to myself in Chinese and ticked off the multiple choice answers.
The stopwatch stood at 6.25 seconds as I watched two last digits reel by in a blur.
I looked back down at the pop quiz there was a big question in bold surrounded by a gold box. I was printed upside down and was a math problem: The prime factorization of 1578893 equals…
There was some additional fine print: Detailed solution must be shown in the upper right hand margin. NO CALCULATORS!
My mind temporarily turned into a black hole. Milliseconds raced by as I used all my fingers and toes like a high speed abacus counting off factors. I nailed the two factors and painstakingly printed the detailed work required carefully ticking off microscopic dots of ink with the Waterman fountain pen. Horrible visions of the pen clogging before the final essay question quickly raced through my mind .
I was burning milliseconds, the stopwatch stood at 7.05 seconds. I raced through the essay question crossing every t, dotting every i, punctuating, and placing both double and single quotation marks. I even threw in some footnotes. Finally I was finished. A miniature movie of me surfing the Amazon river and dodging piranhas looped in my brain.
The surfboard clerk pressed the stopwatch button and screamed in a high cheesy falsetto, “Times up”!
The surfboard clerk snatched the pop quiz from my hand and noted the time from the stopwatch in the upper left hand corner of the quiz and made me double initial again.
He disappeared behind the desk and went through an office door in the rear taking the surfboard with him.
I’ll be back in a few minutes after I grade your pop quiz and fax a copy to the main office in Brasilia.
The erection in my surfboard shorts grew, my toe knuckles cracked. I almost had an orgasm right there even with the raging heat rash. Time stood still the minutes passed like molasses.
I could hear the fax machine buzzing through the office wall. Finally he reappeared behind the desk. His face was deadpan. “I’m really disappointed with you. You missed 3 multiple choice answers and misspelled ‘piranhas’ in the essay question. No surfboard for you”, he stated flatly.

Paranormal is filmed in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project, a rambling style first person with a home camcorder. Producing a movie this way keeps costs down and does away with any focused direction, screenwriting, and other nuisances associated with creating a polished movie.

The movie opens with a high school graduation ceremony. A young Latino gentleman named Jesse receives his high school diploma. A celebration follows at the apartment complex where Jesse lives. Jesse shares some Sauza tequila with grandma and they get drunk together. The day afterwards Jesse and his friend Hector are doing stupid stuff at the complex and playing with Jesse’s new camcorder. Egged on by his buddy Hector Jesse slaloms down the apartment complex concrete steps in a laundry basket with the camcorder attached.
Jesse gets some raspberries on his knees and elbows and Hector laughs at him for being an idiot.

Later on that night Jesse and his buddy Hector are in Jesse’s bedroom. Strange noises can be heard coming through an adjoining ventilation shaft between the two apartments. Jesse and Hector have a brain fart and decide to lower the camcorder on a string to the bottom of the ventilation shaft to see what they can see. Jubilation breaks out as they spy a naked woman in the adjoining apartment participating in some sort of Satanic ritual with a naked man.

From here on out the movie cuts between scenes simply by shutting the camera off. Somehow Jesse winds up getting possessed with a demon. It is not clear why. The only revelation the audience is given is through an old Simon Says electronic toy that has suddenly become an Ouija board. Several scenes throughout the movie show Jesse and his girlfriend playing cards and consulting with the toy that has become an Ouija board.

From here on out the movie sort of rambles around in no particular order. A few short sentences follow to describe the movie between the camera going on and off. Jesse sees someone that is supposed to dead. Hector and Jesse’s girlfriend visit a couple of guys that have guns and stuff and know about the cult. Jesse discovers he can fall backwards and levitate at a 45 degree angle. Hector tries it and gets the wind knocked out of him. Jesse and Hector go to a neighborhood party to drink and try to get laid. Jesse goes to the spooky abandoned apartment where he saw the dead guy and almost has sex with his one night wonder from the party. They discover a trap door in the floor of the apartment and decide to check it out. Somehow they get distracted from having sex. They see scary stuff in the basement. Jesse goes home the next day and pulls black string out of his nose and eyes. Jesse’s grandma gets worried and consults with a Mexican shaman for advice. Jesse gets weird. Jesse levitates his pet chihuahua on his bedroom ceiling. Jesse blows up an air mattress with Hector laying on in one superhuman puff.
Jesse does a couple of other superhuman stunts. Grandma tries to rub three eggs on Jesse and make the sign of the cross in hopes the demon will go away. Jesse gets weird again. Hector and Jesse’s girlfriend decide it’s time to go to the police. Jesse appears out of nowhere and then reappears. Jesse’s girlfriend lays him out with an iron pipe. Hector and Jesse’s girlfriend get the neighbors with guns that know about the Satanic cult to help out.
If you are not confused yet you will be.
The scariest thing about this movie is how $9 leaves your wallet and you sit through an hour and 40 something minutes of crap trying to decide if it was better to stay home and watch Youtube.